by Moriah Jovan
“Cassie, I’m so sorry. I know it’s three hours earlier there, but I thought you’d want to know what today’s were.”
I stilled as what she said penetrated the fog. “Today’s?” I asked carefully.
“Oh, they’re gorgeous,” she breathed. “It’s like Holland exploded all over your desk.”
“Tulips?” I whispered, my mouth dry.
“Dozens and dozens. In every color imaginable, in those pretty metal vases that change colors.”
“Vases?”
“Twelve, thirteen, maybe. I haven’t counted yet. All completely different. They’re reflecting off the walls and it’s like a pastel rainbow in here.”
I cleared my throat and struggled to sit up, wondering if I’d only imagined my phone ringing earlier, then groaned.
“Cassie, are you okay?”
“Migraine. Is there a card?”
“Yes.”
“Open it.”
She dropped the phone and I winced. I could hear her scrambling to get it. “Oh,” she said when she picked up the receiver again. “It just says, ‘eight o’clock, swishy skirt and high heels.’”
My reflection stared back at me from across from the bed: eyes wide, mouth open—exactly how I would expect to look after getting shit-faced the night before.
I pitched the phone across the room and burst into tears.
•
I cursed myself for fifty-three kinds of a fool for the thudding in my heart as I checked my reflection in the mirror at 7:54. My migraine had ceased, thanks to the half bottle of Tylenol and the ice pack I’d laid over my eyes before I’d fallen asleep in the corporate jet’s bed.
I had gone shopping as soon as I got home. I looked good and I knew it.
From the white off-the-shoulders peasant blouse to the short orange ruffled skirt over layers of short black net petticoats to the orange leather ballroom dance shoes, I was ready to salsa, mambo, rumba.
My stomach lurched when the doorbell rang and I hated that I felt like such a teenager, but he made it all seem so new and fresh, so...
Innocent.
I opened the door to find him there, one hand in his pocket and the other braced against the jamb, a gleam in his eyes I was only too willing to assuage. He wore Dockers and a button-down shirt, already unbuttoned at the throat and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his most expensive piece of clothing the loafers on his feet.
“I wasn’t sure you were still speaking to me,” he murmured as he straightened and approvingly took in my outfit. “You didn’t answer the phone this morning.”
“I was in California,” I replied, unable to raise my voice above a whisper. “It was very early. I wasn’t expecting you to call, so I thought I was dreaming.”
He took a deep breath and straightened, then stuffed his other hand in his pocket. “Cassandra, I meant what I said last week.”
I pressed my lips together, but only said, “So did I.”
“Yet here we are, both of us dressed to go dancing all night. What does that say?”
His wry tone made me laugh then and my jitters evaporated. “I have no idea.”
He held his hand out to me then and said, “Shall we dance?”
* * * * *
Ere You Left Your Room This Morning
February 2, 2011
There was only one man who’d ever come close to earning Mitch’s hatred, and at the moment, he stood in the doorway of Mitch’s office, trembling with anger. It gnawed at Mitch, the way he couldn’t let go or forgive Shane Monroe for breaking Mina’s heart.
His daughters’.
His son’s.
“Come in,” Mitch said over his shoulder. “Have a seat.”
Mitch turned back to his laptop to enter a few more details on his report. The door slammed. Fabric rustled. A shadow appeared at the corner of Mitch’s right eye.
He looked up at his father-in-law staring over his shoulder at the screen. “Don’t,” Mitch growled and closed the lid a little too hard. “This is my office. Go sit down until I’m done, then you can speak your piece and leave.”
Shane’s nostrils flared and his fists clenched.
It was Mitch’s job to forgive, yet he couldn’t.
Mitch’s eyebrow rose when he didn’t move. “Would you rather I had you come to the foundry and talk to me while I’m on the line?”
“Still playing in the coal?” Shane sneered, but finally he did as Mitch ordered. “You just can’t get the blue off your collar, can you?”
“Who says I want to?”
Mitch turned back to his report, then started when his door opened without a knock. “Dad, what—” Trevor stood in the threshold, wearing his greasy coveralls, staring at his grandfather, who stood slowly and stared back at Trevor in shock. For Shane, seeing his grandson for the first time must be like looking in a mirror.
Crap.
“What can I do for you, Son?” Mitch asked calmly.
“Uh...” Trevor had a hard time dragging his attention from the old man, but finally did. “I got a message at work. Said you wanted me to come over here.”
Mitch’s jaw ground as he glared up at Shane. “I don’t know what’s going on in your head, Shane, but I will not tolerate you manipulating my son the way you manipulated Mina.”
“I wanted to meet my grandson. Sue me.”
Mitch gaped at Shane, unable to believe what he’d just said. What could he say to such blatant manipulation? Rather, which thing would he choose to say?
“So, young man,” Shane said heartily, flagrantly ignoring Mitch, holding out his hand, never flinching when Trevor’s greasy hand clasped his. He pulled him into a one-arm hug and heartily thumped his back. Trevor, still shocked, allowed it. “I hear you’re getting ready to go on a mission?”
Trevor’s face betrayed his confusion and underlying hurt. He had no idea how to deal with this: a grandfather who’d refused to acknowledge him suddenly appearing, acting friendly, asking about the one thing he did not want to do—the very thing he was willing to do to earn Shane Monroe’s attention and, possibly, love.
“Trevor,” Mitch said. “Go back to work. I’ll talk to your foreman in the morning.”
He almost protested, but one look from Mitch was all it took to get him moving out the door.
The door closed softly, and Shane pursed his lips. “Well, you’ve got that boy trained. Congratulations. Wilhemina was never that tractable.”
Elder Snow. Elder Snow. Elder Snow.
“Mina was tired. And ill. She couldn’t do what you expected of her. If you’d paid the least bit of attention to her, you’d have known that. Or was it that you didn’t want anything messing up your perfect life?”
Shane sucked in a sharp breath. “You worthless piece of scum,” he hissed.
“You wouldn’t take her to a doctor when she asked. You pushed her into soccer and wouldn’t let up on her. You browbeat her into silence. Shane, face it. You just didn’t want the inconvenience of taking her to the doctor or the embarrassment of a daughter with a terminal illness.”
“You accuse me of, of, of—that, but you’re the one that made her cook and clean house and have babies.”
“That’s what you trained her to do, isn’t it? But only for Greg.”
He flushed.
“For the record, I didn’t make her do anything except see a doctor when I finally figured out she was lying to me about her health—and even then it took her obstetrician admitting her to the hospital to do it. Because you made her think it was all in her head, and she didn’t want to burden me with either the time or the expense. Not only did I give her excellent medical care, I also gave her a housekeeper, a nanny, and a cook, which Greg would never have done.”
Mitch and his father-in-law squared off until Shane looked away and down, toward the wedding picture Mitch kept on his credenza.
The man reached out as if unwilling to touch it, but compelled by some greater force. He picked it up gingerly with fingers that had never known har
d labor, a fact of which he was proud. He had made his money early on and was very successful by most standards—but not compared to Mitch. It didn’t matter. Shane would never allow himself to see Mitch as anything other than a failed missionary and loser steel worker in a dying steel industry with nowhere to go but McDonald’s and shanty town.
Shane tapped the glass over Mitch’s twenty-one-year-old face. “That should’ve been Greg standing there,” he whispered. “In Salt Lake. Not you in DC.”
“Tell me what Greg could’ve given her that I didn’t,” Mitch murmured.
Shane glared at him, opened his mouth—
Nothing came out.
The old man deflated in front of his eyes, aging ten years when he couldn’t lie to himself anymore.
“You wore Mina down every time you refused her attempts to contact you, every time you returned Lisette’s and Geneviève’s invitations unopened, every time you defamed me to anyone who’d listen. You haven’t spoken to any one of us in twenty-five years, and now you show up...why? To insult me? To trick my son and get him all wound up for...what? Why are you here?”
Shane’s chin jutted out, but he refused to look at Mitch. “I’ve been hearing things. About you. Bad things. I came hoping to find out they were wrong, but I’m not even going to bother asking. Obviously you’ve pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes—your stake president and your own leadership—even if everybody else knows what you’re about.”
“Care to share?”
“That you’re carrying on with some poor married woman in your ward, leading her on, doing—things. Spending so much time with a teenage girl, putting ideas in her head—rebellious ideas—encouraging her to run away and such.” Mitch let his father-in-law rant while he made a note to talk to Hayleigh. “It shouldn’t surprise me, though. Wilhemina was Hayleigh’s age when you pounced on her.”
Mitch threw down his pen and laughed. “Do you really believe that or are you saying that because it fits how you’d like things to be?”
“No, I believe it, you and that low-class Guerrero girl all wrapped up in each other not a minute after you got home from France. Don’t think I didn’t see you two going at it, hot and heavy.”
Yes, Inez. Always the minuscule monkey wrench in the works, which, no matter how small, could still stop the cogs occasionally. Mitch remembered that night, when he’d begged Inez to leave her lover and let him provide for her and her children.
Mina had healed his broken heart in no time.
“Then you had the gall to go after Wilhemina after I specifically warned you away from her.”
Mitch shrugged. “It would’ve taken me longer to notice her if you hadn’t, so...thanks.”
Shane’s fists clenched and Mitch knew the old man was about to come charging over the desk at him. “You like fragile women, don’t you? First Wilhemina and then Sally Bevan—”
“Oh, so you admit you knew Mina was sick.”
Shane’s face flushed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Believe what you like,” Mitch said heavily. “Just get out of my sight and leave my son—and my daughters—alone, the way you have for the last twenty-five years.”
Shane quivered with rage as he stood. “I’m a practical man,” he said through gritted teeth, “and I have never believed in such things as demon possession or—selling your soul to the devil, whatnot. All that satanic stupidity other churches talk about, but I’ll tell you something. Right now, when I look at you, knowing what you’ve done and what you’re doing, I believe it.”
Mitch watched him leave, sick at heart that it had come down to one man’s delusions—hatred held so long it had twisted his mind. He sighed and picked up his wedding photo, stared at it for a long time.
Mina had been lovely, especially that day, her chestnut hair gleaming, piled elaborately on top of her head and studded with tiny sprays of baby’s breath. She had had pretty chocolate-colored eyes sparkling with optimism. Her cheeks and nose flushed pink in the cold, but her smile was warm. She looked like a brunette Barbie doll in the photograph, clad in lace and beads and puffy white sleeves. She had been of average height, if a little too thin, but against Mitch’s bulky six-one, she looked tiny. Fragile.
It was twilight in winter in Washington, D.C. The temple was brilliantly lit from inside. The grounds, all dressed up for Christmas, framed them in the photo.
It had taken Mitch a month to arrange a proper temple wedding for her. His mother and sisters had made Mina’s dress. They’d also made the cake and refreshments for a little reception at the union hall. There had been invitations and gifts and dancing... It hadn’t cost that much, true, but it hadn’t felt like an elopement, either, when everything was said and done.
He traced her face with a finger and murmured, “Mina, what do you think of Cassandra?”
Mina would’ve shied away from Cassandra like fog from ten a.m. sunlight, intimidated by her carriage, her beauty, her confidence. Then she would’ve watched Cassandra from afar, perhaps a month or two, and, once persuaded of Cassandra’s integrity, would have approached her—skittish as a butterfly—with an offer of friendship.
No answer.
Well, Mina’s spirit wouldn’t be here with him, anyway. She’d be off doing interesting things with her ancestors, having a good time while she waited for him.
He took the picture home and packed it away with the rest of his treasures. Once he finished his shower, he stopped short at his dresser. Stared at the valet that held his cufflinks, tie tacs and bars, watches. Looked down at his left hand. Gulped.
“I love you, Mina,” Mitch whispered, then raised his right hand to his left and pulled his wedding ring off. He opened his valet and dropped it in. “I always will.”
* * * * *
It’s Just a Phase
February 8, 2011
My phone buzzed. “St. James.”
“Hi, Cass.”
I sighed and dropped the stack of analysis printouts that had absorbed me all morning, trying to figure out where the hell all that cash was going...
“Out of money again, Gordon?” That meant I could expect a call from my husband-in-law some time later in the day to deliver another one of his parenting lectures.
“The twins’ birthday is coming up.”
Oh. Well, of course. “I already took care of it. As usual.”
“You did?” His voice betrayed his conflicted feelings. “What did I get them?”
“Skiing in Vermont for a week with their boyfriends.”
“Oh,” he said again and fell to silence; I could almost see him squirming, struggling to get the words out, the real reason he’d called.
“In case you’re wondering,” I volunteered, “I’m going to give them the usual little birthday party with cakes I’m going to make from scratch and ice cream and wholly inappropriate handmade gifts for their oh-so-special twenty-first birthday. You and Nigel are invited, of course. You know the drill.”
“’Preciate it,” he said absently, so lost in his need he didn’t understand what I’d actually said. I sighed. I wasn’t this man’s wife anymore; why was I still bailing him out, making his life with our daughters so easy?
“Gordon, does Nigel know you’re calling me?”
“Um...”
Mitch would know why I did this, if I ever decided to tell him, to detail it for him, how sick and twisted my little nuclear family unit was—and he’d take it in stride, the same way he took everything else in stride. Then he’d explain it to me.
My patience broke at the thought of Mitch.
“I’m not giving you any more money, Gordon,” I blurted, shocking myself to realize that I meant it.
He choked. “What?”
“I’m tired of the charade. From now on, you sink or swim on your own. If you want, I’ll tell Nigel I’ve cut you off so he knows to prepare for the fallout.”
“No!” he breathed. “The girls!”
“Nigel is your husband. Ask him for the money like every ot
her society wife in the world, because I’m not going to go behind his back anymore. It’s not fair to him.” Oh, well. I’d tell Nigel just for the hell of it at lunch tomorrow and order a decent bottle of wine to smooth the transition from ex-wife-as-caretaker to current-husband-as-caretaker. “Your other option is to start using the magic word ‘no’ when the girls want something.”
“You never minded going behind my back,” he snapped.
“Gordon,” I said sweetly, “do you really want to go there?” He said nothing. “I didn’t think so.”
“Cassie, sometimes I just want to—”
“Rape me?”
Silence.
“No,” he finally said, deflated. “And I’m sorry about that. You know I am.”
Yes, he was, and the only reason we had a good relationship was because it had been such an aberration. People do nasty things under duress, and it was a miracle Gordon hadn’t cracked sooner with the pressure his father had applied his entire life.
“Are you ever going to forgive me? You know I wasn’t myself.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I muttered, unwilling to let him know that with that one vile act, he had freed me from my prison. It was a strange sort of gratitude that I couldn’t explain even if I wanted to. He’d paid his debt for his crimes against me, then sought treatment. He was a far better, stronger man now than the one I had married. “I hang out with you, don’t I?”
“I’m the father of your children and your best friend’s husband. I’m hard to avoid.”
“Gordon,” I huffed, exasperated, “I could forgive and forget if the girls didn’t think I set you up.”
“Are we back to that?”
“Yes. I’m asking you to tell them I didn’t lie to the police, didn’t lie in court, didn’t make it up out of whole cloth. They’ll believe you.”
He’d never do it in a million years, which is why I felt safe hounding him about it. He remained stubbornly silent.
He wasn’t better or stronger enough.
“Anything but that, right?”